The present invention relates to an electric vehicle such as, for example, an electric automobile which is driven by an electric motor.
As a conventional electric vehicle, there is one as disclosed, for example, in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. SHO 55-157901. The conventional electric vehicle is arranged such that a generator is mounted on the vehicle as a drive source for an electric motor, in addition to a battery. The battery is charged by the generator, and the electric motor is driven by electric supply from the battery to cause the vehicle to travel.
However, the above-described conventional electric vehicle has the following problem. Specifically, in the case where an electric load on the electric motor is high such as time of acceleration of the vehicle and time of climbing of a slope thereof, if electric loads on respective accessories or auxiliaries such as, for example, an air conditioner, a heater, a defroster and the like are large, an accelerating force and a force for climbing a slope become insufficient.
There is such an arrangement that an air compressor for the air conditioner is cut off by an electromagnetic clutch at acceleration, for example. In this case, however, there is the following problem. That is, since an amount of electric load varies discontinuously by abrupt cutting-off of the air compressor, acceleration becomes discontinuous. Thus, there cannot be produced a feeling of smooth acceleration.